Alun Michael
Main Page: Alun Michael (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)Department Debates - View all Alun Michael's debates with the Home Office
(14 years ago)
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Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Minister accept that there is deep unease within the IT industry about the possibility that the focus on numbers will reduce the flexibility of companies to bring people in and out of the country to meet the needs of what is an extremely flexible and internationally important industry?
Damian Green
I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. It is an important international industry. I hope, however, that he will recognise two countervailing pressures here. There is the pressure from international business, which wants to move people around, but there is also a lot of perfectly reasonable pressure from trained British IT workers, who have done everything that society has asked of them—got the right sort of degree, gone into the right sort of business—but are finding it increasingly difficult to find jobs. We should listen to their voices as well.